THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956)

For those of you who don't know, the Ten Commandments are ten rules listed in the Christian Bible that it says humans should live by.  A few of them make sense like "Thou shalt not kill." (yeah, no shit!) and "Thou shalt not commit adultery.", but others like "...the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates..." are just silly.

Anyway, although the title of the film is THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, there's actually very little Commandments action going on.  Nope, the vast majority of the movie is about a dude named Moses.  Moses was born in Egypt way the fuck back in the day.  Around the time that he's hatched there was a prophecy that a great deliverer would be born to lead the slaves out of bondage.  So, the guy who owned all of slaves, the evil Pharaoh puts out a decree that all newborn male slave children shall be murdered.  Goddamn!  Moses' mother places lil' baby Moses in a basket and sends him afloat down the Nile river.  As Fate would have it, within one minute of being yeeted into the Nile, the evil Pharaoh's adult daughter (of all people) finds Moses and raises him as her own child.  Awww.  The End.

Oh sorry, that's actually just the beginning of the film!  Moses soon grows up to look like Charlton Heston and it's down to him and the Pharaoh's legitimate son, Yul Brynner, as to who will take over once the Pharaoh dies.  Things are looking pretty good for Moses, but then he fucks up and before you can say "I really wish Twenty One Pilots would cover Phil Collins' 'One More Night'" Moses is now a slave himself!  What the fuck?  Talk about a rags to riches and back to rags again story.

For being an older film THE TEN COMMANDMENTS is still very entertaining.  Yeah, it's as historically accurate as DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR?, but who cares.  Solid acting by an impressive cast (I think Anne Baxter is the highlight of the movie), great sets, an insanely huge amount of extras, animals all over the place, wildly imaginative story, badass costumes, strong direction, groundbreaking special effects and a quick pace that makes the 220 minute runtime fly by.  I've seen TTC a few times over the years and I'd gladly watch it again right now.  My only real gripe is the ten plagues of Egypt stuff is passed over way too quickly.  It shows a little bit about water turning into blood and the hail storm, but it completely skips over the frogs and boils and locust!  Lame.  Still, it's easily worth multiple watches.  Check it out.

STAGECOACH (1939)

Anybody interested in Western films, especially classic westerns, needs to watch STAGECOACH.  Set in 1880, STAGECOACH (directed by John Ford and featuring a great cast) is an ensemble western about a stagecoach traveling from Arizona to New Mexico straight through Apache territory.  Early on, as the stagecoach driver (Andy Devine) readies the stage, we're introduced to the passengers: a banker (Berton Churchill) with a secret, a dance hall girl (Claire Trevor) being run out of town, an alcoholic doctor (Thomas Mitchell), a whiskey salesman (Donald Meek), a pregnant woman (Louise Platt) looking for her husband, a gambler (John Carradine), a marshal (George Bancroft) and then later on...John Wayne as a tough guy who broke out of prison to avenge his brother's murder.  Things start out normal enough, but then the woman goes into labor and the Indians attack and things start getting exciting.  And let's not forget, Wayne hasn't avenged his brother yet!

Being close to century old, STAGECOACH is definitely dated, but it's still an enjoyable watch and, at least for me, I got an even bigger kick out of watching the cast and studying the filmmaking techniques than I did the story.  A fantastic cast full of beloved faces, steady pace, great camerawork, beautiful Monument Valley scenery, strong direction, good story and one especially impressive stunt.  Recommended for classic western fans.